Alaric feels it long before he sees anything. Like someone is always just out of sight, lurking. Waiting. A constant tension, like something could happen at any moment.
Then come the glimpses. At first just a shadow, almost beyond his range of vision. He'll turn around just in time to see someone disappearing around the corner. He'll go out to his car after work and see someone off in the distance, watching. Only when he turns to look, he's always alone. Someone is there - or maybe not. It's the killer, he thinks; no, he knows—who else would it be? The first attempt to kill Alaric failed, so it stands to reason that he'd try again.
Then the dreams start. Someone is in his head, ever-present, talking, foreign, but oddly familiar. It sounds like the German his Omi used to speak, but softer, and he strains to understand the words, but it's just a jumble of garbled sounds, their meaning always just out of his reach. The intent, however, it clear—whoever, whatever it is wants Alaric. So Alaric checks and double-checks his vervain supply to make sure it's intact, but still the dreams come. He drinks coffee at night, spiked with vervain, trying to stave off asleep, when he falls victim to his own mind. But he's always out cold by midnight, no matter what.
One night, he wakes up and is certain that someone's at the end of his bed, watching him. But when he switches on the light, the room is empty, the curtains swaying gently in the breeze. It is only when he's drifting off again that he remembers there is no wind. He's awake the rest of the night, staring into the shadows, wiling them to move.
He wonders if it's Damon. Neither of them have never spoken about this odd, almost sexual thing between them, and he expects Damon never will as long as Elena is there. Besides, Alaric doesn't want the complication of Damon in his life; his friend is like Isobel in a way-too many ways-and he doesn't think he has the energy for that right now. So instead he focuses on Meredith, pretending he can find his salvation in her while attempting to ignore Damon's digs and attempts to tear them apart, as if he doesn't want Alaric for himself, but he doesn't want her to have Alaric either.
One night, he dies again. He's out in the woods with Damon and Meredith, on the trail of the killer, who's just killed two council members and gravely injured Carol while somehow escaping without a trace, when suddenly he's hit, a wooden crossbow bolt to the chest. He grasps the bolt and tries to pull it out of his chest, his bloody fingers sliding over the wood he carved himself, and he's dead before they reach the end of the bolt.
When he comes too, he's in the hospital again, his chest still bandaged. The killer escaped, Damon says, glaring at Meredith as she injects his blood into Alaric's arm. Damon licks his lips unconsciously as he watches and Alaric's gaze is drawn to Damon's mouth. He suddenly regrets that he'd insisted he take Damon's blood this way instead of drinking directly from the source.
Later, Bonnie comes by the hospital and examines the ring.
"Fix it," Damon says with a scowl.
"There's nothing wrong with it," Bonnie says, irritation slipping into her voice. When she turns back to Alaric, however, she gives him an apologetic smile as she hands him the ring. "Sorry, Alaric. The magic is intact. The ring seems to be working fine. I don't know why it won't work for you anymore."
"Thanks," he says, gazing down at his finger as he slips it into place. A shadow passes by his peripheral vision and he looks up just in time to see someone disappear out of sight through the doorway.
He returns home later in the day, unable to shake the dread that fills him. Is the killer still following him? And what's happening with his ring? He sits in front of the television after Elena goes to bed, drinking himself into a stupor. There are no dreams that night.
The next evening, he meets Damon at the Grill. He can tell his friend is worried, but he doesn't know what to say. Still hungover from the night before, Alaric sticks with coffee. When he says goodnight, he decides to check his weapons at the loft before he goes back to the Gilberts'. He drives up and makes his way up to his empty apartment, letting himself in. He stands in the dark for a moment, realizing as he reaches for the light, that he's just made a terrible mistake.
Before his hand can reach the switch, he's pushed against the door, slamming it shut in the process. He tenses to fight, to flee, but a hard body is holding him still, unrelenting and unmovable.
"Oh, you're not goin' anywhere, mate," a familiar voice purrs in his ear. "And don't worry, I can fix your little problem. But I'll be taking this first."
Before Alaric can react, Klaus tears off Alaric's ring, almost taking Alaric's finger with it, and then there are hands on his throat, squeezing, and everything goes black.